The Box Before
by 10Blue10
Summary: In 'The Doctor's Wife', the TARDIS says that she was a museum piece when the Doctor was young. But she couldn't have been in a museum her whole life. Who was our favourite mad man piloted blue box...before the Doctor?
1. Chapter One

The Box Before 

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, the TARDIS, Gallifrey or any other related concepts. However, I do own the OC characters mentioned in this story.

Please read, review and above all enjoy my new story, The Box Before.

Chapter One

The Capitol of the Time Lords lay underneath a majestic dome, between two mountain ranges, the Mountains of Solace and Solitude. Situated on the fringes of the Inner Capitol was the Time Travel Capsule Maturing Centre. The Time Lords were not ones to often use acronyms, so if they ever referred to the building without using its full name, they simply called it the Time Centre.

The Time Centre was where their time machines were cultivated. At this point in Gallifrey's very long and varied history, the time machines had yet to be called Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Instead they were known as TT Capsules. There was a sea in the southern reaches of Gallifrey, where the coral was affected by temporal energy, pouring from a hairline crack in space and time. Pieces of coral were harvested and stored in the Time Centre until they matured and were suitable to be flown.

On this particular day, a prestigious Time Lord was paying a visit to the Time Centre. He had bestowed upon himself the title of 'The Supervisor', and was an important member of the newly formed Celestial Intervention Agency. His job was to supervise new developments, both on Gallifrey, and on other advancing planets. The Supervisor was in his second incarnation, and had already gained a reputation for being a commanding and critical presence.

The head technician turned to the Supervisor and said, "If you'll follow me down this aisle, sir, I'll show you the first example of the project". They walked past hundreds of pods, and the technician unlocked the final pod on the fifth shelf from the bottom. Inside sat a small, vaguely cuboid shaped piece of coral. "This is a new version of the Type 40. We've applied tiny psycho-electrical impulses to the coral, and used them to embed this instruction. 'Automatically set co-ordinates to the necessary destination'. Put simply, the ship will take its crew where they need to go" explained the technician.

The Supervisor looked thoughtful. "Will the crew still have control over the destination in question?" he asked. "Definitely. They'll be able to set the co-ordinates, and this TT capsule will take them there without fail" the technician replied with conviction.

"Very well Ardan, I'll get a seal of approval from the Board of Commission. Connect it to the Eye of Harmony, if you have the time". Ardan knew that his superior meant, "And even if you don't". He set about attaching it to Gallifrey's energy source, known as the Eye of Harmony. According to legend, Rassilon himself had formed it from a black hole and locked it in the centre of the planet.

The coral began to hum, and give off a white and azure blue glow as it filled with artron energy. The soul inside sparked to life, and her consciousness tentatively reached out. Straight away she sensed feelings of welcome from hundreds of different minds. Beyond her immediate surroundings, lay the fascinating, terrifying whirlwind of the Time Vortex.

_Hello, little one_ said a kindly mind from somewhere above her. _Hello_ she replied nervously. _Don't be afraid, we are your Sisters. This planet is Gallifrey, home of the Time Lords_ explained the voice. The baby Type 40 was curious. _What are Time Lords?_

Another mind spoke; this one felt proud. _The Time Lords are our masters. When we are full grown, they will use us to travel through the Time Vortex_. The Kindly One added _Remember, it's your duty to obey your pilot_. There were hums of agreement from the other corals. The young Type 40 felt excited. She couldn't wait to grow up and be flown to a different time and place.


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or anything related to the shows canon. I am making no profit from this story.

Speaking of stories, one of mine has no reviews. Not a single one. Kind of makes me sad.

Chapter Two

For a TARDIS, growing up took a very long time. It took the young Type 40 200 years to reach full size. She whiled away the centuries immersing herself in the intricacies of time and space. Everything there was or would have been, everything that is, everything that will be or could be; she memorised every atom of space and every strand of time.

The time machines, being telepathic, had no need to refer to one another by name. However, they still labelled each other with nicknames based on the general state of their minds. A time machine with a bewildering consciousness would be called the Confusing One, for instance. The unique Type 40 was dubbed the Curious One by her sisters, because of her endlessly inquisitive nature.

_Why don't other aliens visit Gallifrey? What if I try to take off and get stuck? How do the Time Lords get their Time Sense?_ Despite having access to all the answers, the TARDIS seemed to delight in questioning the world around her. She usually received the same answer, delivered in an exasperated tone_: It is just the way things are. _

When she wasn't asking questions or familiarising herself with various timelines, the TARDIS played mind games with her Sisters. A popular pastime was to have a conversation backwards, by replying to statements that had yet to be spoken. Another game was to guess whether a described timeline was current, alternate, or aborted.

In what seemed like no time at all, the TARDIS found herself experiencing her species version of adolescence. Her form became a blend of organic and mechanical, and streams of programming were embedded into her consciousness like artificial instincts. 201 years after first becoming conscious, the TARDIS was taken out on a test flight. It was the most thrilling experience of her life; racing through the Time Vortex like a roller coaster, or a boat in a storm, or a dancer. She landed on a beautiful pink skied planet, and watched strange birds flit past in awe. Her first new planet was called Cerisa.

Soon the newly matured time machines were allocated to pilots and crews. They gossiped about their Time Lords, and the Type 40 often felt left out. The Proud One extolled her pilots virtues every chance she got, and was indignant when he passed her off to a snob with no redeeming qualities. Then an older Type 38 capsule, belonging to the Supervisor, became badly damaged and decommissioned. _What does 'decommissioned' mean? What will happen to the Thoughtful One?_ she asked the Kindly One. Her Sister tried to think of a way of explaining the circumstances.

_Well, when a time capsule becomes too old to fly, or too damaged, the Time Lords let her have a very long sleep whilst they fix her up_ she lied. The Type 40 believed this, because as well as being curious, she was also very naive. To her delight, the Supervisor selected her to be his new ship. "It's about time this capsule proved its worth" he said. When he imprinted on the Type 40, she was honoured and eager to do his bidding. The Supervisor visited a number of planets with the Type 40, according them different statuses. Some, like Sol Three, were deemed 'Unimportant' and completely ignored.

However, the TARDIS was still forced to wait in the docks for sometimes years on end, whilst her crew attended to other matters. To pass the time, she studied the stunted tree that stood outside the window. She counted how many leaves it had (160,000), calculated the angle at which it leaned to the left (14 degrees), and watched its temporal journey from seed to full grown, albeit rather small tree.

One day, a terrible piece of news filtered through the minds of every time machine, from the youngest coral to the most ancient ship. The Time Lords were instigating a new policy, and if every single time machine didn't pass a rigorous test to prove they were reliable, they would never fly again.


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who

Chapter Three

The Type 40 loved travelling too much, and she couldn't bear the thought of it ending. Alas, the Time Lords were set in their ways. They chose observation over exploration, order over adventure. The only way to escape an automatic decommission was to pass the now compulsory time capsule analysis. A team of experts reviewed each aspect of all the functioning ships. Everything from the circuitry, to the ships reliability.

The time came for the Type 40 to have her analysis. _Are you nervous?_ asked the Paranoid One, but she did ask every Sister this question_. Very. But still, if I don't pass, all they'll do is put me to sleep_ she replied. _Don't you know what being 'put to sleep' means?_ Asked her Sister. Being the Curious One, she naturally inquired, _What does it mean?_

The Paranoid One whispered_, It means they kill you_. If the Type 40 had been nervous before, now she was terrified. _Don't listen to her. You're bound to pass the test_ said the Sensible One. In fact, the Type 40 received near full marks on all but one of the many tests. Her crew spent weeks bringing the now 350 year old time machine to near perfect condition.

The final test was a routine flight to Androzani Minor, to prove her reliability. The Type 40 was fully prepared to follow her instructions, but just before take-off, she sensed an impending disaster. She tried to focus on the flight; her life and freedom depended on it.

When she was in flight, the Type 40 couldn't shake off the feeling that something terrible would happen. She focused on her own timeline, and found to her horror that if she landed at the co-ordinates provided, a mining accident would blow them to smithereens.

An older, calmer Sister would have alerted her crew to possible danger, or altered part of the co-ordinates so that she landed on the right planet, but in a slightly different place. The Type 40 panicked, and altered course mid-Vortex with a violent lurch. She landed instead on Sol Three, as far from Androzani Minor as she could get before the crew regained control.

"What happened?" demanded the reviewer. "I don't know" snapped the Supervisor, "it's never done that before". Her crew continued to argue, and the Type 40 felt like she must have lost all hope of ever flying again. A wave of relief crashed over her, when the reviewer agreed not to decommission her. She had passed every other test, after all. "Just make sure nothing like it happens again".

She continued to serve the Supervisor, and even though there were long gaps in between missions, the Type 40 was too relieved to mind the boredom. Yet time and again she would get the overwhelming urge to go somewhere different to where she was told. Sometimes she thought she heard a voice in the back of her mind. "Take them where they need to go".

Time marched relentlessly on. Most time machines stopped playing time games and gossiping about their pilots. The old were decommissioned; the new were prepped for flight. The Supervisor organised a universe wide survey, an ambitious undertaking in an age when the non-interference policy was fiercely enforced. The survey was meant to be so intensive, the Time Lords would not have to organise another for a millennium.

His ship was excited about the project, boasting about it to her Sisters. _This will make the Supervisor famous_ she told them, _and then I will be famous too_. The planets were to be visited in alphabetical order. The visit to Alfava Metraxis would be the last flight the Type 40 took with the Supervisor.


	4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. I only own this story.

Big thanks to Saphura and Ceeare for reviewing.

Chapter Four 

As his TT capsule dematerialised, the Supervisor noted the shudder it gave, and the slow flight, with concern. He hoped it wouldn't act up yet again, and land on the wrong planet. The Supervisor was losing patience with the Type 40, and the fact that it rarely landed where and when he desired.

When they landed, he ordered a member of his crew to perform the environmental checks. "Let's see, oxygen- no, that can't be right" she said, staring at the display with a worried frown. "What, pray tell, cannot be right?" inquired the Supervisor. The Time Lady explained, "These are the read-outs for Alpha Centauri, sir, not Alfava Metraxis. The ship appears to have...skipped that planet".

What had actually happened was this. Seconds after dematerialising, the Type 40 was hit by yet another warning pang. An image of a winged statue, its hands covering its face, appeared in her mind. The Type 40 identified it as a Weeping Angel, one of the most deadly creatures in the universe. They were overrunning Alfava Metraxis.

Rather than panic as she had done the last time, the Type 40 decided to simply avoid the danger zone and move onto the next destination. She didn't have time to check exactly which time period the Angels had invaded in, and they could always return during a safer time. As far as the Type 40 was concerned, it was as simple as that.

Her pilot didn't see it that way. "I am getting sick of this" he said sourly. "I was promised that this ship would take me where I needed to without fail". One crew member said "Perhaps there was a fault with the instructions it received when maturing" suggested another crew member.

The Supervisor frowned. "I cannot perform my duties, or complete this survey, with a rogue time machine. Set the co-ordinates to Gallifrey, immediately". The Type 40 returned to the docks and waited with anxiety in her Heart. Soon she sensed the mind of the Supervisor, as well as a technician. They stopped at her doors and went inside.

After giving her a look over, the technician announced that he didn't see anything wrong with the Type 40. "I tell you the ship is going rogue. It should have never received the programming it did; there's no point in taking a pilot where he needs to go, if it will not take him where he wishes to go" insisted the Supervisor.

"Very well sir. There's a Type 45 just matured, you might like that one. The pilot has complete control" said the technician. "That will do. You can sort out the paperwork yourself, I have other matters to attend to" replied his superior. The technician nodded. "Yes sir. I'll neutralise your crews Imprimatur straight afterwards" he agreed.

When her ex-pilot and the technician had gone, the Type 40 felt stunned and ashamed...but most of all, she felt betrayed. She had trusted the Supervisor. He was her first pilot, making a name for himself in society, and the Type 40 had truly believed they could have done great things together.

_I can't believe he's giving me away_ she said miserably. Her Sisters were sympathetic. _Some pilots are like that. They only want the new_ said the Unconcerned One. _If you behave yourself, your next pilot will be bound to keep you_ said the Confident One. Over and over they told the Type 40 what she'd heard all her life- just let things go on.

She didn't want to just let things go on. The Type 40 thought about what had happened; she thought and thought. She convinced herself that the Supervisor was in the wrong, that he had betrayed her. He thought she was rogue? She would show him. She would show all of them.


	5. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, it would have started by now.

But never mind! Is anyone else excited for Pond Life on Monday? I know I am!

_Chapter Five_

An irate pilot returned his 28,600 year old Type 40 to the docks- one hour after he'd left. "It shocked me! I noticed the co-ordinates changing, tried to put them back to the way they were, and it just electrocuted me for no reason!" he yelled at the helpless technician. The Type 40 watched him storm off with a satisfied hum.

When her first pilot cast her aside, the Type 40 had been determined to prove that she was a reliable time machine. At first, she managed to take her new pilot where they wanted to go; but then the instinctive urge to go where she needed to returned. She couldn't fight it; no one could remove the programming that was rooted in her very core.

As the centuries rolled by, the once naive and willing Type 40 became ever more cynical and stubborn. She didn't want to get attached to any pilot; she had started getting attached to the Supervisor, and look what happened with him. Incidentally, his universe wide survey ended up a complete flop. _Serves you right, traitor_.

Her Sisters became estranged from the Type 40. They talked about her instead of to her. She was no longer 'The Curious One', but instead, The Oddity. Passed around like a parcel, mistrustful of any pilot that so much as tried to form a bond with her, the Type 40 slowly but surely really did go rogue.

Sometimes, she would have lucid moments where she wondered what she was doing. She missed the guidance of the Sensible One, who unfortunately had failed the analysis thanks to her negligent crew. The Kindly One, who might have snapped her Sister out of this aggravated state, had been stolen by a renegade and never returned.

The Type 40 quite liked the idea of being stolen. A renegade wouldn't have a whole crew to help keep her reined in. They wouldn't be able to take her back to Gallifrey without getting arrested. She could go wherever she pleased, _and_ with a live in engineer.

This time, no one would take the Type 40 on. She had become well known for being a temperamental, unreliable ship. "Sorry, old thing, but I don't have a choice. You're going to have to be decommissioned" the technician told her. She was teleported to a storage room within the Museum of Temporal Artefacts.

Out of boredom, the Type 40 decided to see what had become of the little tree she had once spent so many days staring at. It had been cut down and replaced with a taller and straighter specimen. _Cast aside for being different, just like me_ she thought, and then, _oh Gallifrey's stars, my only friend is a dead tree. _

The now annual time capsule analyses meant there was a lot of back log in the decommission office. The Type 40 refused to speak to her fellow victims, no matter how friendly they tried to be. They soon gave up on trying to make conversation with her, but she heard them talk about her day after day.

Then out of the blue, a Time Lord was arrested for attempted rebellion and the assassination of the Lord President. Every person on Gallifrey turned their attention on this scandal, and such matters as decommissioning ships were put aside. Rumours circulated about the defendant; that he was half-human, had been illegitimately born, and was friends with an insane Time Lord.

The Type 40 couldn't care less about the trial, but she was rather interested in the Time Lord. If he managed to escape life imprisonment, he'd undoubtedly be exiled, which in her view made him more interesting than the other stick in the mud Time Lords.

It was considered terrible etiquette for a TARDIS to observe a Time Lords entire timeline without having a link with them. Screw etiquette. I'm waiting for my death, I can entertain myself however I like the Type 40 thought bitterly. She sifted through Time to find the rebel's strand, and watched his life unfold before her mind's eye.


	6. Chapter Six

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.

_Chapter Six_

The first thing that caught her attention was his given name. With a name like that, she could tell that the Time Lord would have attracted attention eventually, whether he rebelled or not. She didn't think it suited him. One of its meanings was 'death', but he was full of life.

At first he was eager to learn and explore, looking up to the older and wiser people around him. Then his story became so sad. His family bullied him mercilessly about being part-human. Even his own parents didn't wish to spend too much time with him, for fear of tainting their reputations.

He ran from the Untempered Schism. The Time Lord method of gaining Time Sense was barbaric, as far as the time machines were concerned. Children were occasionally inspired, but more often than not, they were terrified or driven mad. This child, he seemed to run to _stop_ himself going mad.

Then he went to the Academy, and fell in with a group of gifted but delinquent students. Under their influence he became less obedient, and questioned the wisdom of his superiors. He continued to be mistreated because of his part human nature. He grew more and more frustrated with every passing day.

_He's so much like me_ thought the Type 40. She watched as he grew up, got a job, started a family. He succeeded in convincing a member of the High Council to ban the use of mini-scopes; portable zoos filled with kidnapped, miniaturised creatures. Then he set his sights on getting the non-interference policy abolished altogether.

His so-called 'allies' from the Academy offered to help him start a rebellion. The one he saw as his best friend, the supposedly mad Time Lord, warned the guards in advance of the plan. He had been betrayed, just as the Supervisor had betrayed her. The Type 40 felt a deep pity for the young Time Lord.

One day, the Type 40 overheard her Sisters talking about the trial. _Did you know that rebel has been acquitted? Apparently his brother persuaded the tribunal that he'd seen the rebellion in a dream and thought it was a precognition_. Now that she knew he was safe from punishment, the Type 40 couldn't resist peeking into his future. Deep down, she was still the Curious One, after all.

What she saw shocked her more than anything in the universe. He would steal her. Her! The rogue, outdated time machine that just wanted to explore...and the bored, rebellious Time Lord that just wanted to make a difference. _We would be quite the team_.

Glimpses of his future (their future) flashed through her consciousness. _Daleks, "It's my home", Earth, Barcelona, Peladon, "somewhere else the tea's getting cold", Racnoss, Cybermen, "infusion of radicals and tannin, just the thing for healing the synapses!", Silurians, Weeping Angels, Vashta Nerada, "they fit perfectly!" Shakespeare, Vincent, Krafayis, Apalapachia, "one day I shall come back"._

So many people to meet, places to visit, wonders to discover! All that she'd seen in her twenty eight thousand or so years, couldn't compare to the incredible wonder that could be her life, if only that renegade would steal her. The chances of his doing so were a hundred to one, but the Type 40 couldn't help hoping. Hope made being talked about, ostracised and decommissioned so much more bearable. Hope made her feel alive again.

The tribunal discovered that the statement of the defendant's brother was false; by that time the defendant had vanished. A Type 40 TT capsule was stolen from the Museum of Temporal Artefacts, thought to be by the renegade defendant.

The defendant's teacher, Lord Borusa made the following statement: "There's no point in looking for him. That one failed his exam on the most recent model; he won't last five minutes with an obsolete one".


End file.
